Like it or Not
by classtiel
Summary: "When Dean first meets Gabriel, he's got the biggest smile Dean's ever seen on a man whose entire body is covered in bee stings." Dean/Gabriel.


**writing this fic emotionally traumatised me goodbye**

* * *

When Dean first meets Gabriel, he's got the biggest smile Dean's ever seen on a man whose entire body is covered in bee stings. Of course, at the time, Dean isn't in the best shape either. But at least his broken leg and crushed hand don't stem from an impromptu foray into a bee farm naked dripping in sugar water. And at least _he'd_ been drunk.

It's no surprise that Dean starts up a conversation. From there, with a full three weeks stuck in a hospital with nothing to do, they get to know each other. Dean can appreciate his sense of humour, and from how Gabriel reacts, the number of people who actually can are few and far between. The kinship comes mostly from the fact that they're both sad and horny and in pain; but the morphine doesn't hurt either.

Still, though they're equally sarcastic, sexual, and emotionally constipated, the biggest thing they have in common is that they never have any visitors. There are no flowers or balloons or cheesy Get Well cards that play music when you open them. The closest Dean comes to having a well-wisher is when his brother calls from college, sounding vaguely worried but mostly disapproving, and if Gabriel has any contact at all, he keeps it quiet. Apart from the hospital staff, their room is empty.

But in the end, it's only a week. Neither of them wants to bother forming any deep connections. (Even if Gabriel's one funny guy. With great hair. And really, shouldn't eyes like that be _illegal?_) When the time comes for him to be discharged, Dean goes without much of a warning. He tries and fails to get a nurse's number (something about having carried around his urine for a week) and departs with nothing but an outstanding medical bill and a prescription for Vicodin he probably shouldn't be taking. He leaves thinking very little about his temporary roommate, and why it suddenly takes longer for bee stings to heal than a broken leg.

. . .

The second time they meet, they're both half-naked, hot, and sweaty. They banter playfully in the gym hot tub while Dean rests his leg and Gabriel soothes his still somewhat irritated skin. One makes a pirate joke and the other makes a stinger joke and suddenly, it's like they're sharing a hospital room again - only this time, they aren't contained to a hospital bed, which is how Dean finds himself caught between Gabriel and a hard place.

Well, two hard places.

The first time around, it's an 'incident'. But the second time Gabriel slides his hand down the front of Dean's bathing suit, it quickly becomes a 'thing'. There's even a vague sense of 'fuckbuddy' when they discover together exactly what happens when someone from security gets sent into the steam room investigate the noises.

It's Gabriel who first decides to push it a little farther. Dean's not sure why, but one Saturday night, Gabriel turns up on his doorstep with condoms, apple pie, and a smirk. He doesn't talk much, or at least what he does say doesn't have much substance to it. Apart from the jokes, it never really has.

. . .

Gabriel dropping by the apartment a few times a week with sugary presents becomes a regular thing for a while. But what comes after that is a whole level above 'fuckbuddy', one that Dean isn't sure he's ready for: 'Dinner'.

So when Dean's the one to pop the question, he's more surprised than the one it's directed towards. _"Hey, you in the mood for Chinese?" _

Unexpectedly, Gabriel doesn't make it a date. They make jokes at the expense of others, drink more than is probably healthy, flip their filled cups upside down on the table, and laugh while doing it. After they pay for their chaos with a generous fifty dollar bill, for the first time, Gabriel takes Dean back to his place.

"So, this is where you, uh, strip naked and cover yourself with sugar water?" Dean asks, drinking in his surroundings with raised eyebrows and loosely contained enthusiasm.

"I do other things, too. Wanna take me for a test run?" Gabriel winks.

But Dean, not predicting the quick invitation, hesitates; he wants to spend more time just looking at the place where Gabriel makes his home. What he's searching for, he's not sure. All he knows is that, just as unexpectedly as Gabriel doesn't make dinner a date, Dean kind of wishes he had.

. . .

Around the fourth week, they spend moderately more time talking than having sex and they're okay with it. They make jokes, share toothbrushes, and play harmless pranks, but occasionally after they've been thoroughly exhausted and are lying side by side on whatever surface they were rutting against, things take a turn for the serious.

Gabriel talks about his family when prompted – his religious upbringing, his brothers fighting, his father mentally checking out, how he ran away. At first, Dean's sceptical because what he hears is _abandoned_. He remembers Sam and how Sam abandoned him and he gets quiet for a bit. But then as Gabriel sleeps, Dean replays everything he's said in his head and he realises something. Gabriel doesn't talk about the Novaks like people he hates, or people he doesn't want to be around. They're his _family. _He loves them, so much that he can't stand to be around them when they don't love each other.

Dean can relate.

The next morning Gabriel watches him cautiously all throughout breakfast. Like he's waiting for Dean to react (to leave?).

He settles for, "Let's go to the fair," because suddenly, Dean just wants him to smile again.

. . .

'Relationship' sneaks up on them. Dean wakes up with Gabriel's whole body wrapped around his and he _knows_. When Gabriel wakes up, his eyelashes tickling the back of Dean's neck, he knows it too. Neither of them talks about it, but neither discourages it either.

Instead, they do the sensible thing and wordlessly decide to never talk about it ever. They roll out of bed, eat pancakes that Gabriel burns his hands trying to make, and eat their breakfast in comfortable silence, and after they finish, Dean accidentally kisses Gabriel goodbye, accidentally slips him a key, and accidentally feels pretty damn good about it for the rest of the day.

By the time Dean comes home and finds Gabriel recording Dr. Sexy, M.D. on his TiVo, they're both resigned to the fact that they're pretty much screwed.

. . .

Work occasionally makes things complicated. Even though Dean's hours are regular, Gabriel's aren't – a side effect of being a public defender. More than once, the phone interrupts little things like dinner and heart-to-hearts, but also bigger things like mind-blowing sex ("Are you kidding me? A_gain_?", "Well, I'm sorry the criminals don't consider the feelings of your penis before they go out and commit crimes"); not to mention the randomly scheduled court dates (what kind of judge schedules something at eight o'clock on a Saturday night?) and the times Dean isn't sure _where_ Gabriel is. He says things about consulting hours with his germaphobic boss, and he always comes back from those smelling like a damn hospital. Dean's so sick of hospitals that all he wants to do is rip all Gabriel's clothes off and cover him with soap and shampoo and other kinds of sticky things; so generally, he does.

. . .

It's either a very soft kiss or just the tickle of hot breath over lips. Gabriel hums Dean's name against his neck, and suddenly, all Dean wants to do is kiss him so hard that they have to breathe the same air.

He hooks his arm around Gabriel's back and pulls him in closer. "Quit fucking around," he whispers against his jaw. Gabriel slides his fingers around Dean's waist, just barely touching the edge of his jeans.

"Say please," he teases.

"Like hell. _You_ say it."

"Fine. _Plain._"

Dean furrows his eyebrows, and his grip on Gabriel loosens momentarily. "What?"

"Nothing. Kiss me," Gabriel says. He pushes his hips against Dean's and rocks him against the wall, and they both forget the momentary slip of the tongue to concentrate on the other kind of slipping their tongues can do.

. . .

"I think I'm becoming a bad influence on you. You're starting to walk like me," Dean comments one day when he picks Gabriel up in the Impala.

Gabriel doesn't look at him, just smiles. "That's because I spend so much time looking at your legs," he quips. "Though not always when you're upright."

Dean licks his lips. "Shut up."

"Make me."

He does.

. . .

It happens first in the steam room. Gabriel's talking to him one minute, head bobbing enthusiastically and mouth racing, and the next, he's passed out on Dean's shoulder. The first time, Dean puts it off as a sugar crash. But then it happens again. And again. _And again_.

Dean blames it on the extra time he's putting in at work. He has a talk with Gabriel about his sleeping habits.

. . .

On Valentine's Day, Dean says 'I love you' for the first time. Gabriel keeps his happiness contained to his eyes and his smile. "I lose you, too," he says. Dean laughs because if Gabriel's so happy that he can't even remember the words, he's doing something right.

. . .

Gabriel's a little odd, Dean decides. He falls up stairs and spills water down his front and can only remember why he's walked into a room about fifty percent of the time. In the end, it makes for funny stories to tell Sammy when he visits over Thanksgiving break.

. . .

Around Christmas, Gabriel loses his taste for sweets. Dean figures he shouldn't mind, even if the sudden change is a little disturbing. After all, how unhealthy can it be?

. . .

Other things change. Gabriel gets angry a little more often, and he sometimes starts the same conversation twice. He forgets the names of things and has to act them out and loses _everything_. Dean shrugs it off, but a little more dubiously.

. . .

Dean can't make excuses anymore when Gabriel calls him from his car in a panic.

"I, uh, can't seem to remember where we live, Deano," he says with a laugh.

His voice is shaking.

. . .

Gabriel stops stealing the remote when his fingers tremble so badly that he can't press the buttons.

He forgets Dean's name at Dean's birthday dinner. He calls him 'Derek'. Twice.

Then he can't tie his shoes anymore, so Dean does it for him.

. . .

Gabriel has a seizure. He stays in the hospital for a while.

. . .

A while becomes a few weeks. A few weeks becomes a few months.

. . .

Dean wakes up in a cold sweat.

"Gabriel? Gab-" he mumbles blindly, fingers reaching across the bed. It's empty.

Something squeezes him inside and he falters.

_Oh. _

_Like it or not… _

Gabriel watches Dean as he sleeps, tugging at the strings that create the hunter's dreams.

_Missin' me yet, Deano? _he thinks.

For Gabriel, it's been an hour. For Dean, inside his head, it could have been a lifetime. All Gabriel has to do is plant the seed – a few subliminal images of himself slowly falling out of Dean's life, leaving him, forgetting him, maybe even dying. It's more than enough to prepare him for what's coming.

_Consider it a goodbye note. Before I… _He pauses, swallowing.

The angel blade in his hand glints in the moonlight.

_Well. You know. _

… _this is what life's gonna be like without him._****

* * *

**i have no idea what i'm doing with my life anymore**

**idek if anyone got it but gabriel had mad cow disease idek i'm leaving i might rewrite this with like cancer which is easier but cjd is more fun**

**i give up on englishing these author comments**

**goodbye**

**EDIT: Revised some shit fyi**


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